JOE With a 12- to 15-minute show, we don't have time to properly show any personality and cover all the places. We're figuring out now — well, working on it — the right amount to schedule to allow for the random things to happen and allow for the unexpected, which a lot of times is the best shit anyway.

JOEL Right. And eating and drinking being like a thread that ties everything together . . .

JOE. . . well, yeah, two episodes we didn't do a lot of drinking, and I was like, we gotta get back on the drinking thing here. Because at the Fryeburg Fair there was no booze, and we were just so fucking full from eating at like, eight places . . .

KURT. . . well, you were drinking anyway.

JOE Oh, yeah, but not that much. I'm a big drinker, Kurt.

ALEX At the end of the day the drinking thing is just sort of figurative. We're saying that what was missing was drinking and really what was missing was the freedom in these situations to experience . . .

JOEL Right.

JOE Because we found out in Fort Kent that being hammered does not translate well, either. When we had fifteen minutes of footage after three days filming because we were just so fucked up.

BUT THAT'S THE FORT KENT EXPERIENCE, TOO.

JOEL That was my Fort Kent experience.

JOE Well, Joel took it above and beyond anybody else . . .

SO HOW DO YOU SCHEDULE THE EATING PART OF THE WHOLE WEEKEND, THEN? DO YOU PICK PLACES IN ADVANCE?

KURT Yeah, we have to. We have such a tight time-frame. There's a lot more planning than it probably looks like there is. And we have shenanigans that we plan in.

ALEX We plan open time, which is usually where the shenanigans happen, but there is a schedule.

KURT Well, in Fort Kent we had nap time, which we needed.

JOE That (original) Lewiston itinerary (Alex) had that was like six in the morning 'til fuckin' like ten! We've realized that unless it's absolutely necessary we don't want to (do) any overnights. We wanna get in and out of filming ideally in seven hours, because then I turn into a little crankypants.

WAIT, ON OVERNIGHTS YOU GET CRANKY?

ALEX Just the long shoots without rejuvenation time.

JOE I get really childish. I get like arrgh, I don't feel like it anymore.

ALEX If we start at eight and go 'til like five, right around five Joe just shuts down.

KURT He just hops in the car and drives off.

DO YOU GUYS EVER GET CONCERNED FOR HIM?

KURT Who, Joe? No.

ALEX In his life, yeah, but not in the show.

KURT My wife has concern for him, but that's about it.

JOE I'm fine. . .

JOEL You mean, like, a heart attack or something?

ALEX Yes (he does). No, you mean existential concern?

WELL, IF YOUR JOB IS TO GO TO BANGOR AND EAT AT FOUR OR FIVE PLACES, AND THERE'S ALSO A LOT OF PERFORMANCE IN THERE . . .

Interview: Andy Richter We have a chub for Andy Barker, P.I. (just released out on DVD), because we have a major chub for the show’s star, Andy Richter. Richter plays an accountant who is mistaken for a detective-for-hire and decides to just roll with it.

Interview: Cesar Millan "Pit bulls are not bred for healing people, or for healing dogs. But because I channel the energy into something more humane, they're using all this pit-bull energy into really making it happen."

The resistible rise of Andrew Fenlon By the time I get Andrew Fenlon on the phone — two days after the airing of his now-notoriously contentious American Idol audition — the world around us has already split into three factions: those who loathe him, those who love him, and those who need a reminder: who is Andrew Fenlon?

Must Flee TV? If Jersey Shore and Last Comic Standing had a threesome with Curb Your Enthusiasm in the men’s room of Great Scott, the bastard issue might look a little something like Quiet Desperation .

Easy does it Writer/producer Eric Overmyer was quoted in a New York Times Magazine article last month, but it’s worth repeating: “ Treme is not the The Wire .” He went on: “Those who are expecting The Wire or wanting The Wire may be frustrated.”

UNMASKING AFRICAN RELICS | February 26, 2014 An evocative, transportive exhibit of icons, artifacts, and spirit masks from some of the many, many cultures and “kingdoms” of West Africa, what is now Cameroon and Nigeria.

THE TEQUILA ODYSSEY | February 20, 2014 Each of the city’s drinking establishments has its roots in some primordial myth.

TRUE EFFIN' ARTISTRY | February 20, 2014 Mousa is the new recording alias of Vince Nez, a/k/a Aleric Nez, the name by which he released a nimble, unpredictable record in late 2010.

THE STATE OF SEA SALT | February 12, 2014 A surfeit of salt manufacturers have cropped up in the state over the last few years.

NOT YOUR AUNTIE'S DOOM | February 06, 2014 Sure, it may be Latin for “forest of trees,” but Sylvia more readily conjures some wiseacre aunt, not a burly group of veteran musicians trying to carve new notches in well-trod forms of heavy metal.